From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!wupost!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!milton!forbis Mon Dec 16 11:01:02 EST 1991
Article 2032 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca comp.ai.philosophy:2032 sci.philosophy.tech:1376
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!wupost!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!milton!forbis
>From: forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Meaning and Agency (was re: Searle and the Chinese Room)
Message-ID: <1991Dec11.042430.13871@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 91 04:24:30 GMT
References: <1991Dec8.164459.6318@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Dec9.091317.2145@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Dec10.013916.6386@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 92

I hope I haven't cut the thread too deep.  Many lines have been removed.

In article <1991Dec10.013916.6386@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1991Dec9.091317.2145@milton.u.washington.edu> 
>forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:

GF:
>>>>I'm not sure I want to consider the semantic role of volition.

MZ:
>>>Semantics without agency
>>>is simply inconceivable.

GF:
>>Not only can I conceive of semantics without agency but I have done so.  What
>>I have conceived may be malformed but it has matured to such an extent that
>>it has offspring of its own.

MZ:
>Let's go back a bit.  When you ask yourself the eternal question, "Why does
>it hurt when I pee?", do you, in concluding that your symptoms mean that
>you have a case of clap, conclude also that the gonococcus is a symbol
>thereof?

I would conclude the gonococcus is the cause thereof.  The pain is a signal 
indicating the onslaught of some pesky critters.  I'm not sure I see your
point.  Since you reference it later I will delay.

MZ:
>you can have a formal semantic theory of the ontological
>kind, e.g. Church's Logic of Sense and Denotation, of Montague grammar,
>without a prior theory of action.  On the other hand, once you pose the
>question of the linguistic meaning, such a theory becomes necessary.  This
>follows from elementary consideration of the traditional communication
>scheme: an addressor must be an agent, just as an addressee must be a
>patient.  Otherwise, we are back to the wily gonococcus.

It appears I've played footloose and fancy free with the term "communicate"
or "agency" becuase I talk of one program module "communicating" with another.
I don't consider these modules to have volition.

OK, we are back to the gonococci.  Now while I sometimes think my penis has
a mind of its own I doubt this is the case.  None the less, it seems to be
able to communicate the gonococci's arrival just fine.

>GF:
>>I have always assumed that the semantics of a symbol exist independent of
>>the agent using it (I'm not sure I'm using agency in the way you mean it.) 

MZ:
>I have argued that your assumption is wrong.  If you find my argument
>obscure or unconvincing, you should see H.P.Grice's discussion of the
>difference between natural and non-natural meaning in his classic paper
>"Meaning", reprinted in his "Studies in the Way of Words".

Willco, although this might create a delay too large for my limitted
attention span.

GF:
>>It turns out my teleology doesn't involve "agency" (as I think you define
>>it) at all.  All my uncaused causes are random.   Am I using "denote" and
>>"symbol" incorrectly when within my world view I think of a symbol as an
>>entity which denotes another entity?

MZ:
>I've always understood Aristotle's discussion of *telos*, or final cause,
>in the Metaphysics (e.g. Book \Delta 2, 1013b) as depending on agency;
>perhaps you could persuade me that one could meaningfully talk of the end
>of a thing, i.e. that for the sake of which a thing is, without thereby
>presupposing noetic and/or somatic agency.  How can an entity use anything
>without being an agent, and the thing used, a patient?

I knew there was a reason I was going to call the gonococci agents; I read it
right here.  You must mean that the gonococcus is a somatic agent.  But the
gonococci don't communicate anything (except diseases but that is a different
story.)  Yet there must be a mixture of the two becuase my penis does seem 
to communicate with me and it's not a noetic agent.

I see I am wrong.  Though not involving volition there is agency as you 
define it.

[For any language used by a philosopher there are a finite number of 
 utterances and within these utterances a finite number of symbols.
 The meaning of these symbols are communicated syntatically.  There exists
 other languages for which these same symbols uttered in the same order
 are syntactically correct.  Up to this point I have considered your
 language to be somewhat different from what I now consider it.]

>GF:
>>Thanks for your time.

--gary forbis@u.washington.edu


